Activists stress that while their cause is different from the anti-war protestors at Harvard in 1969, they are part of the same tradition.

"A lot of us look back at the history of activism at Harvard--not just to University Hall but also to anti-apartheid in the '80s--to know that we're not just isolated, and we're part of a continuing tradition," Hennefeld says.

Times They Are A-Changin'

But the '60s may be an unfair standard for today's students because

campuses are less conducive to activism than they once were, according to Nicole A. Morse, development director of the Boston-based Center for Campus Organizing.

Morse says the rising cost of college, paired with increasing reliance on loans instead of grants in financial aid, could be affecting students' desire to protest. Previously, she estimates, 80 percent of financial aid packages came from grants and 20 percent were loans. Today the numbers are roughly flipped at many schools.

As a result, Morse says, students "have less time and are more tied into the system."

Morgan says he feels that especially at Harvard, changes in students' career goals have affected activism on campus. While students have always aspired to positions of power, he thinks fewer students now are interested in academia and politics--aspirations that have often coincided with student activism.

Instead, Morgan says, students are gunning for the business elite. "Over the past 30 years, [it's] shifted more and more to economic control."

Zinn says holding today's activists to the standard of the '60s can create the wrong impression--that students today are more apathetic than their predecessors.

"There's nothing inherently active or passive in any student generation," Zinn says. "It all depends on what happens in the world."

Keep Your Eyes Wide Open

Striking a balance between respecting the legacy of the '60s and establishing an independent identity for today's activists is a tough task, Morgan says.

The best compromise, he says, is to keep the '60s as an inspiration but not an exact model to follow in modern times-- "something to hold onto without having it dominate the conditions under which you operate."

Zinn echoes Morgan, saying protestors shouldn't see the '60s as a standard for radicalism to which all later activists should be held.

Student activists "should see the '60s in an inspirational way," he says, a reminder that "it's possible to have a great student movement, and it's possible for students to have an impact on society."